Queer Spawn

Abstract

I embrace autoethnography as a methodology where researchers can use their own lived experiences to expose and possibly transform structures of oppression. Similarly, theatrical performances have the potential to challenge marginalization in ways that more discursive modes of research and activism cannot express “because performance demands that we pay attention to the deep particularities of human action.”1By combining these approaches, performance autoethnography is a “resistance model”2 that offers a unique perspective on how to address marginalization. In my research, I ask: how can queer performance autoethnography be a mode of resistance that enacts social change? In this article, I articulate the ways in which my autoethnographic theater show, Queer Spawn, strives to expose normalized heterosexism by dramatizing my lived experiences as a second generation queerspawn (queer child of lesbian moms). Through performance autoethnography, my research examines how my generational queerness informs my understanding of the heterosexism my lesbian parents and I experience. My analysis of Queer Spawn asserts that witnessing embodied performances of queer autoethnography can cultivate a wider cultural understanding of queer(spawn) marginalization.“You have two moms?” asks a new acquaintance. We are lingering after an event and this seemingly innocent question is an invitation to perform my queerspawn “party tricks”—a request I know too well.“Yes, two moms, no dad—they are lesbians,” I recite. Before they can ask the inevitable question that I dread (“But aren’t you gay, too?”), I launch into a hilarious story about my lesbian moms’ home improvement project of 2005. Despite the story being grounded in problematic stereotypes, I use it as a way for me to feel in control over the perception of my intergenerationally queer family. This “party trick” prompts Lisa O’Connell (artistic director of Pat the Dog Theatre Creation in Kitchener, Ontario) to suggest that this casual porch-side performance should be a play.“Yeah, I didn’t have a birth certificate until I was three years old because my moms would replace the title ‘father’ with ‘other mother,’” I say chuckling in rehearsal with Lisa.“WHAT?!” Lisa exclaims.In that rehearsal, I realized that I too had normalized my queer oppression. To me, being denied a birth certificate was another monotonous queerspawn experience. Lisa’s shock led me to question: how else have I used “party tricks” as humorous antidotes as an attempt to legitimize my family? Once I started to intentionally engage in reflection about my experiences as a second generation queerspawn, I recognized how these stories could be crafted for the purpose of advocacy against queer marginalization since “theatre provokes self-reflection”3 in both the creator and the audience.My autoethnographic research with Queer Spawn is grounded in work that cites performance ethnography as a creative methodology that strives to “enrich our analyses, and facilitate our communication with diverse audiences.”4 Comparatively, performance autoethnography asserts how “ethnographers reflexively (or unreflexively) write/perform themselves into their ethnographies” that can “disrupt the status quo.”5 Using artistry such as storytelling, improvisation and theatricality to explore, record, and perform the researcher’s personal ethnographic insights, performance autoethnography is a type of research creation “in which creative practices…are used to generate new understandings.”6 I practice performance autoethnography as a critically reflexive exploration into my queer marginalization wherein my lived experiences inform how heterosexism can be addressed within and beyond the staged performance.Furthermore, queer performance autoethnography can speak to “those of us who have been systematically excluded from culture within the larger world of repercussions.”7 The ways in which I create, analyze, and perform my autoethnographic insights are influenced by my queerness because my subjectivity is intertwined with my methodology. This also means that my social location as a white-settler, cisgender, femme, able-bodied, queer woman with class privilege in Canada influences my lived experiences and thus my autoethnographic research. My analysis on how heterosexism is normalized within our society is dependent on my own simultaneous marginalization and privilege.Consequently, my queerness is inherently involved in my autoethnographic insights because I am queer—yet, when we purposefully engage with our queerness in autoethnography, there is an intentionality that further contributes to advocacy against marginalization. Queer performance autoethnography is a “method of intervention” that disrupts the normative by “evok[ing] empathetic and affective responses”8 by situating the personal to speak to the cultural. Performance autoethnography’s potential to address multiplicity while drawing on the individual is an affected mode of resistance that I leverage in Queer Spawn. Considering that “autoethnography is both a process and a product,”9 the content and form of Queer Spawn are both modes of advocacy enacted in performance.The content of Queer Spawn obviously challenges heterosexism because my stories highlight how “some people don’t get my family”10 because of our queerness.On stage, I embody the memory of an annoying six-year-old pointing at my lesbian mother, incessantly demanding, “Who’s that?!”11“MY GRANDMA!”12 young me erupts.I am flooded with shame, but I “didn’t want to explain alternative fertilization for the fifth time that week.”13Further, the form or structure of Queer Spawn is an obscurely affective mode of resistance embedded in the performance. As I perform my queer life stories, I claim space and power that combats heterosexism because my presence disrupts the heteronormative expectation of my existence. On stage, I directly address the queers in the audience when I perform a series of jokes about “The L Word”—which is an iconic (and problematic!) 2000s lesbian TV show.I confess, “Growing up, I wished so hard that I was a Shane, but honestly…I’m a Jenny!”14 The queer spectators laugh and exchange knowing glances. The non-queers shift their gaze to the queers among them, trying to get in on the joke. The audience is a sea of swiveling heads.“That’s my secret—it’s not that I’m gay or have two moms, it’s that I was the whiny dramatic character on ‘The L Word!’”15 I persist in performance. Another bubble of laughter from my community as my expansion of self resonates with some of the audience. The non-queer spectators twist their bodies in confusion and discomfort.When queerness is prioritized in the structure of the performance, it strengthens the overall message of the show to challenge heterosexism. By intentionally excluding the non-queer audience, I engage in a queer methodology of discomfort with the purpose of creating an opportunity for cross cultural education. This discomfort is a vulnerable invitation to self-reflect on embodied heteronormative privilege.To expand and sustain the advocacy that Queer Spawn aims to enact, I employ the post-show talk-back sessions as an extended space of performance.16 During the talk-back session, I invite the audience to reflect on the performance they just witnessed. Through that reflection, they are co-creating meaning of the performance with me. The performance “can’t be considered the end of the conversation”17 but rather a way of opening dialogue by incorporating various perspectives. I view the talk-back sessions as a place where I hold space for the audience to collaboratively process the indictment against normalized heterosexism that I proclaim in the show. Speaking with the audience post-show is vital for the community audience to collectively engage in public discourse to address injustice18 because it allows the audience to “announce [themselves] publicly and commit [themselves] to the consequence of response”19 as active witnesses. In this sense, the audience becomes “response-able” to bearing witness to my testimony in performance and (hopefully) carry these lessons outside of the theater space.After the show, I sit on stage and look out into the audience. House lights shine on our collective vulnerability. I invite the audience to speak, to respond to my testimony. I notice a young person sitting between their queer parents. My heart jumps as I see myself reflected in their presence. Their parent asks me: “What can we do to help?” Hope fills my chest. The best response I can muster is, “By simply asking that question, you’re already helping” because it means that this spectator is an active witness by accepting the responsibility of continuing the activist work of Queer Spawn after the curtains close. Non-queer spectators: take note.I have stated earlier that queer performance autoethnography can transform structures of oppression. To clarify this statement, I draw from performance ethnographer Dr. D. Soyini Madison, who states, “I do not mean to imply that one performance can bring about a revolution, but one performance can be revolutionary” by showing audiences “the possibilities that grate against injustice.”20 I agree with Madison’s assessment that the transformation of systems of oppression can occur through the accumulation of witnessing embodied resistance. In Queer Spawn, these moments of advocacy are grounded in: the prioritization of queerness within the structure and content of the performance, the co-creation of meaning during the post-show talk-backs, and the show’s emphasis on active witnessing during and post-performance. Therefore, the activism I create in performance is rooted in my queer autoethnographic methodology that seeks to make my personal lived experiences of intergenerational queerness address the larger cultural issue of heteronormativity. The act of performing my queer autoethnographic insights is an affective and embodied mode of resistance that exposes naturalized heterosexism in our society and enacts social change within and beyond the staged performance.